


A Year in Yggdrasil's Shade

by godofpancakes (Vera_DragonMuse)



Series: Dinerverse [3]
Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: M/M, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:17:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/godofpancakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki comes to several crossroads, wrestles with myth and fate while sorting out the practicalities of Thor in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Check out this awesome drawing of [Dinerverse Loki by Inkhead!](http://inkhead.tumblr.com/post/11969137109/so-i-basically-spent-today-drawing) Make sure to tell them it rocks.

Long ago, a hopeful gardener planted a shaggy flowering sapling behind the general store. It grew at a steady solemn pace despite drought and gross negligence. The store became a beauty parlor, then a short-lived cafe, a discount book store, a real estate office and a record shop. The floors above were converted into apartments rented to college students and drifters long after the stores was given up for good. All the while the tree reached upwards, brushing it’s sweet flowers against the glass of the second floor windows.

At the height of its bloom, Loki would open his bedroom window in the early morning to catch the fragrance. His boundless curiosity had led him to investigate it once and its name _fraxinus cuspidata_ rolled pleasantly over his tongue. The Fragrant Flowering Ash. It had amused him at the time that the wood of an ash had found him, even in the thick of the desert and so far from home.

It seemed less funny with Thor spread out on the bed, the ash’s branches painting shadows over his golden skin. Sometimes irony could come on a little too thick.

Whatever had happened to Thor, it took him days to recover from it fully. They talked in quick snatches, but mostly Thor slept and Loki waited. He went to work, running across the street to check on Thor every few hours until Alma was threatening to shoot him every time he glanced at the doors.

“Go home.” She yelled at him late on the third night. Two tables still picked over their midnight meal.

“I’ll just-”

“Jack, get the hell out of my diner.” She flung a dish towel at his head. “Don’t come back until your friend is up and running.”

“Thank you.” He’d advanced on her to offer a hug and instead got her thick fist planted on his chest.

“No hugs. Get!”

He got.

The moon was richly full that night and he turned his face up to it with a smile. Giddiness suffused him and hustled him along his way. Thor had come for him. All the rest of it barely mattered. He wasn’t Odin’s son. In a way that was a relief, an explanation for years of being a square peg crammed into a round hole. He was a frost giant, but thanks to Odin’s modifications it didn’t matter. Effectively he was as mortal and mundane as Darcy. He would still wait tables, return to college in the fall and live in a dingy apartment with his best friend.

Except there was Thor. He took the stairs two at a time, fumbling with his keys. The door opened reluctantly and only habit saw him closing it again. He threw his work apron over the rickety coat stand and toed off his boots before sprinting across the apartment to his bedroom. Sprawled on the sheets, Thor looked as though he hadn’t moved all night.

Loki sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to brush sweaty strands of hair from Thor’s forehead.

“Hey.” He said quietly, ignoring his galloping heart. “You still in there?”

“Loki?” Thor’s eyes slitted open.

“Yeah, it’s me. How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Thor sat up too quickly, the titanic shift in weight almost capsizing the bed. It was only a flimsy wooden frame with a used full-sized mattress resting precariously on top of it. The two of them barely fit on it and Loki couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d spent the past two nights pressed tightly to Thor’s side, greedy for his scent. “Where were you?”

“Work, I told you.” He grinned at the owlish expression on Thor’s face. “You look better.”

“I feel much better. Hungry.” Thor ran a hand over his face and yawned prodigiously. “Very hungry.”

“I’m shocked.” Loki teased. “Up with you. Come sit in the kitchen while I make you something.”

“You cook?” Thor rose obediently, trailing after Loki to the kitchen. “Where are your servants?”

“I’m poor.” He said cheerfully, shooing Thor into a chair at the two seated table they kept shoved in the corner. “I serve myself.”

“And you work.” Thor repeated, mulling it over.

“Serving food. Not cooking it though.” The refrigerator was well stocked thanks to his foresight and knowledge of his brother’s appetite. He pulled out a carton of eggs, a packet of cheese and some pre-cooked bacon which he shoved unceremoniously into the microwave.

“So you’re a servant.”

“Sort of. Some people treat me that way, but that’s considered rude.” He cracked the eggs into a bowl, watching their innards run together. “Most people have to serve someone to bring home money. I work so I can go to college and eventually get a better job.”

“College?”

“Organized educational facility. I'm studying how the universe works according to them. It's fascinating.” Something hot tickled at the back of his throat. He had imagined this conversation a hundred times, never thinking that he’d ever get to have it. “They use a lot of math to explain things you and I were practically born knowing. But they’ve also discovered so many other things.”

“That sounds exactly like something you’d enjoy.” Loki turned to catch Thor smiling at him. “And I bet your excelling.”

“Of course I am.” He turned back to his cooking, flushed with the compliment. “My teachers say I’m brilliant. I’ll be asked to stay on for my doctoral work, I think. There’s some money in it, if I do and I can reduce my hours at the diner.”

“I thought I’d be saving you.” The admittance took some of the air from the room, but Loki forced himself not to react.

“Why? You should know by now that I would accept no punishment that I can’t turn into a reward.” He buttered the skillet, minding the battle scars from too many stuck meals.

“I think the thought of you thriving frightened me. What if I had turned up and you just...sent me on my way? Which I might have deserved.”

“I wouldn’t.” They needed more cheese, he added it to the grocery list. At some point Darcy had taken a sharpie and between whole-wheat bread and ground beef had added ‘Honesty’. Hilarious. “I knew that it wasn’t your choice, what you did. I forgave you a long time ago.”

“Is it hard? Being human?” Sitting at the little table, wearing an over-sized t-shirt and loose pajama pants, he looked so utterly human himself that the question jarred Loki.

“I still miss my magic.” It was easier to say now after so much time without it. “It would make so many things so much easier. Getting hurt is much worse too. It takes forever to heal and their medicine has a lot more side effects. There are good things though. Far more creativity for one.”

“Have you gotten hurt?” Thor frowned.

“Bumps, cuts and bruises. They accumulate. This skin is fragile. Oh, I almost forgot!” He dug in the refrigerator and pulled out a carton. He poured a large glass of it and set it down with a grin. “You’ll love this. You’ll love soda too, but it’s not great with breakfast.”

Thor sniffed the glass suspiciously and Loki raised an eyebrow. Reluctantly, he took a sip and then beamed.

“What is it?” Thor asked, taking another long swallow.

“Orange juice.” The microwave pinged and he took out the bacon. “They have great fruits here. Sweeter than ours. They have a genius with meat too.”

“And you eat it.” Thor said quietly. “You look as though the food agrees with you.”

“It does.” He scraped cooked egg onto a plate, piling bacon to one side. “I thought it was the flavors or the content, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I just couldn't digest what Asgardians ate. With a human digestion and eating human food, it was probably the first time I’ve had routine access to the correct nutrition.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Thor shook his head. “Why wouldn’t Father ensure that you were eating what you needed?”

“I doubt he knew.” He shrugged, setting the plate down in front of Thor. “Or he didn’t want to think about it. Clearly I was getting enough to stay alive.”

“Aren’t you having some?”

“No, I ate already, you go ahead.”

Quiet fell over them as Thor fell on his meal like an animal. Loki hid his amusement in a glass of water as he watched.

“This food is amazing.” He manged to say through a full mouth of food.

“Isn’t it? And I’m a terrible cook. Wait until you taste something really good. The list of things I want to share with you is about a mile long." Loki grinned at him. "It's terrible being a tourist on your own, no one to discover things with you. Darcy is marvelous, but these things are so everyday to her. They still shock me all the time."

“Tell me about Darcy.” He gulped down juice to clear his mouth. “Why does she live here?”

“She pays half the rent.” Loki grinned. “I couldn’t afford this bit of luxury without her, actually. She’s got a good heart, but she’ll take on anyone that threatens her. I think you’ll get along well.”

“And what did you tell her about us?”

“Everything.” There wasn’t much space to hide in the tiny kitchen. He got up to run the sink, watching the dish soap foam up. “She’s still absorbing it all, so try not to do anything too godlike in front of her if you can help it.”

“You want to stay here because of her.”

“Not just her. I told you, I have a life. Work, college...other friends.” He set the skillet in the water, scouring it with a sponge. “What does Asgard hold for me besides you?”

The silence that greeted that question spoke volumes. Loki continued to clean, trying to regain the joy he’d had earlier in the night. It didn’t take long to set the kitchen to rights and when he turned again he found Thor staring at him.

“What?” He set aside the dishtowel. “Behold the amazing cleaning Loki?”

“No, it’s not that.” Thor sat back in the chair, looking him over slowly. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Am I?” A hot flush rolled over his skin. He cursed Thor’s ability to provoke these dizzying highs and crashes. He had always had too much power over him.

“Always, but more so now.” Deliberately, Thor stood, walking toward him, only stopping a few critical inches away. “I didn’t know what the difference was when I first woke up, but I can see it now. You look confident. Happy.”

“I am.” Loki reached for Thor’s hand, the strong fingers tangling with his own. “Happier since you came though.”

“When does your Darcy come home?”

“She’s not mine.” He laughed uneasily. “She’ll be at Jane’s taking readings for hours. Why?”

“I want to make you happier still.” Thor drew him close, burying his face into Loki’s neck. “Come back to bed.”

He wanted. Oh gods, how he wanted. He rubbed his nose over Thor’s hair, overpowered by the rush of olfactory memories at the sweet-sweat smell of him. Smoothing his hands over the soft cotton stretched tight over Thor’s broad shoulders sent prickles of need over his skin.

“We can’t just start over again.” He protested vaguely.

“No.” Thor’s lips moved over his neck. “But we were always good at this part.”

Breath stolen away, Loki went willingly as Thor led him back to the bedroom. With trembling fingers, he slid his hands under Thor’s t-shirt guiding it up and over his head. He couldn’t help but remember that the last time they had been naked together, it had been under Odin’s wrathful eye. The thought stilled him.

“Should we stop?” Thor asked, even as he leaned forward to kiss him.

“No.” He surged into the kiss, thrusting the memory back to the deep recesses of his mind.

Loki had forgotten the deep consuming want that he always felt when they got this close. How he wanted to tear into the other man until they fused together. He shed his clothes like a snake, barely aware of what he was doing around the intensity of the kiss. They tumbled to the bed, naked and already sweating, but he couldn’t be bothered to get up and turn on the air conditioning. Instead, he brushed his lips over inch of Thor’s face, neck and shoulders. Flicking out his tongue, he tasted the sweetness of his skin.

In careful exploration, he traced down over the hard lines of muscle, Thor’s hands sweeping over his shoulders in restless joy as he went. Hooking his fingers over the elastic, Loki swept the pajama pants off of Thor’s legs. The thick swell of Thor’s cock greeted him and at first he could only palm it, the powerful sweep of memory interlocking with the freshness of the moment.

“Loki.” Thor said quietly, eyes bright in the darkness.

“Yes?”

“I want to say your name.” There was a glint of white teeth in the dark.

“You can say it as many times as you like then.” He choked back emotion and turned his attention to sliding his lips around Thor’s twitching erection.

“Loki...” Thor groaned. “Loki, Loki...”

It was the first time that Loki had ever given a blow-job to the rhythm of his own chanted name, but it was certainly something he could get used to. The taste of Thor was so intimately familiar that he wondered how he could ever have forgotten it. The one stupid encounter with David had been awkward and full of tangled meaning. With Thor it was as if they were continuing a long conversation.

“Don’t...Loki.” Thor groaned, hands tangling into his hair, pulling him off. “I want to have you...please...”

“Are you up for it?” Loki moved reluctantly, searching the face that had been so wane only the day before.

“I could summon the energy after my body was broken in a thousand pieces if I had to.” Thor reached for him, pulling him into another kiss that lasted long minutes.

“Stay.” Loki commanded, pulling away gasping and got up to fumble in his desk drawer. The tube of lubricant was half emptied from too many nights alone. “Give me your hand.”

Thor offered up his fingers, watching with interest as Loki spread them slick and then guided them to his backside.

“What is this?” Thor asked, even as rubbed a thumb slowly over Loki’s entrance.

“Lubricant.” He gasped as Thor breached him, the burn of the stretch waking up every nerve ending. “Humans make it specifically for sex.”

“Ingenious.” Thor grinned, slipping another finger into him, watching Loki’s face. “No stolen cooking oil then. Pity. I’ve come to love the smell of it.”

“This works better.” He tilted his hips to just the right angle until Thor’s clever fingers could wring long stuttering arcs of pleasure from him.

“Still so tight.” Thor murmured, sliding a third finger into Loki. Sweat dripped from both of them now, making skin hazardously frictionless. “Still my holy virgin.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Laughter boiled out of him. “You know there’s nothing virginal left about me. And I’ve never been holy.”

“You are to me.” Thor surged up to kiss him, swallowing Loki’s moan. “Always.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot.” They parted slowly and Thor’s fingers slipped from him. “Bend your legs up.”

Thor obeyed, cradling Loki's body between strong thighs. Reaching for the discarded lubricant, Loki smeared it over his hand, reaching down to slick Thor’s erection. With ease born of practice, Loki positioned himself and held Thor in his hands as he took him inside. Between sweat, preparation and lubricant, the penetration was all pleasure.

They rocked together in a slow, silent dance. Thor lifted his hands and Loki took them gratefully, using them to brace his long slid upwards and sinuous push down. Their bodies talked to each other as they always had. Thor had been right: they were good at this part. Talking was difficult, emotions even worse, but this...this was easy.

“I missed this.” Thor’s words broke the peaceful silence. “Every day, I missed you.”

“Oh, fuck.” Loki’s eyes fluttered shut. “So did I...I didn’t even know what I was missing. Your skin, your kiss, your voice...”

“Loki...” Thor’s hands moved like lightening, seizing Loki’s hips and driving up into him.

“Oh please...please...” With the silence shattered, the embarrassing babble that he’d never been able to hold back in the height of passion returned with a vengeance. “Touch me, fuck me...make me scream...”

With obedience born of long knowledge, Thor flipped them over, hitching Loki’s legs over his shoulders. He drove into him with relentless precision. With a shaking hand, Loki reached down to touch himself and came in a messy splatter. Thor ran his fingers over Loki’s stomach and licked them clean of cum without missing a beat.

“Oh fuck...” Loki shivered. “Finish for me...don’t hold back.”

“Can’t.” Thor agreed and thrust in strong, shaking with the power of his orgasm.

They collapsed together, slick and sated.

“I love you.” Thor told him, lips pressed to Loki’s heart. “Always.”

“Oh.” Loki said with a stuttered breath. “I think I’m beginning to believe that.”

Dawn found him sitting tucked into one corner of the couch staring at a dark television. Sleep had eluded him long after Thor had begun to snore softly. Mind racing, he’d made himself a cup of tea. It went cold and untasted.

“You’re up early.” Darcy flopped onto the other side of the sofa, stretching her feet into his personal space.

“Didn’t go to sleep.” He sighed, letting her stick her cold toes under his thigh.

“He didn’t tire you out enough?” She teased.

“He did, not that it’s any of your business.” He sniffed then softened when she kept staring at him expectantly. “I don’t know what to do.”

“About what?”

“He can’t stay here.” Loki bit his lip. “I can’t ask him to, not really. He’s always been restless and there’s nothing here that could possibly compete with ruling a realm. Father will hand him the crown soon enough if he returns. We, I mean, he waited his whole life for that.”

“There’s you though.” She wiggled her toes under him. “I mean, he came a long way for you.”

“I know.” He rubbed at his eyes. “It’s amazing, but I can’t...it won’t work. I won’t go back and he can’t stay, so where does that leave us?”

“Dunno. It’s a hard problem.” Darcy shrugged. “But you’re smart, you’ll figure it out. It doesn’t have to be right now, right this minute. Relax and enjoy it.”

“Relax and enjoy? That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Good point. You can scheme and enjoy then.”

He tried to take Darcy’s advice and found it easier than he’d imagined. Somehow he’d forgotten that Thor’s curiosity could match his own. When he wasn’t working, they explored the world together. Even grocery shopping took on a whole new dimension with Thor. They spent hours exploring aisles that Loki had previously ignored and came home with things even Darcy couldn’t positively identify. They were forced to crack open the dusty cookbook bought one one of Loki’s book store binges and whip up strange disasters, including the now infamous Whipped Eel Surprise. The surprise had been Darcy’s newly discovered eel allergy.

After several trips to their usual thrift stores, Thor had wound up in soft worn jeans, impossibly alluring tight shirts and practical work books. It was odd to bump into him without the warning of a sharp metal edge. Loki found himself reaching out to Thor more often, resting a hand on the small of his back, leaning into him as they talked or catching his hand to drag him to a display of something or other. If Thor noticed, he didn’t comment and did a fair share of touching back.

“Hey,” Darcy popped her head into their bedroom one afternoon about a month after Thor’s arrival, hair wrapped up in a towel turban. “Jane and I are going to play mini-golf tonight, you guys want to come?”

Loki froze, trying to imagine Jane and Thor meeting. She was Thor’s type, slim and fine boned with a practical mind. She would love him because who didn’t? Smelling danger, he opened his mouth to protest.

“Yes! I have seen golf on the television. I would like to try it.” Thor bounced off the bed, spilling Loki over the side with a thud. “Sorry! Are you all right?”

“Fine.” He staggered to his feet with a half-hearted glare in Thor’s direction.

“Great!” Darcy ran off, towel unraveling like a banner as she went. “Be ready in five!”

“This is a nightmare.” Loki groaned, burying his face in his hands.

“I will not do something foolish.” Thor reassured him with a gentle pat on his shoulder. “I won’t show off.”

“Oh good.” He muttered and went to find his sneakers.

Usually when Loki, Jane and Darcy gathered to play mini-golf it was Very Serious Business. The course was a sad sidebar to the local bowling alley where a bored teenager handed out rubber handled clubs, neon colored balls, itty bitty pencils and minuscule scorecards. They accepted only the clubs and balls. Loki and Jane had designed a new scorecard that included penalties for swearing in front of small children and bonus points for creative victory dances. They would stretch the bang for their buck by skipping the last ball eating hole and starting over again. Often they played seven or eight games in a night, each meticulously recorded for gloating rights. The current tabulation ran Loki: 15, Darcy: 16 and Jane: 48.

They met Jane in the parking lot. She immediately fixed on Thor with the intensity of a shark that smelled blood in the water. Loki made a fist so tight, his nails bit into his palm.

“Tough guys never do well at mini-golf.” She announced after a long perusal. “Your aim probably sucks.”

She flounced off to cajole her favorite club from the current yawning employee.

“I like her!” Thor grinned and Loki laughed, already berating himself for worrying. “I am going to have to beat her, of course.”

“Of course.” Loki’s laughter turned to stunned disbelief as the game turned into a bitter grudge match between the two.

They would start each hole with the dead silence of Jane’s interminable aiming sessions. When she got a hole in one after one such victory, Thor’s eyes narrowed and he started to mimic her coolness. After each round, they complimented each other’s game with tight monosyllables. It got so tense by hole ten that Loki and Darcy quietly snuck away to get ice cream.

“I didn’t think your boyfriend could be that serious.” Darcy commented as they settled onto a bench near the exit of the course. “He’s so happy go lucky all the time.”

“He’s a warrior.” Loki licked melting ice cream from his hand.

“Well, yeah, but I guess I didn’t think about it.” She nudged him. “Is he like that in bed?”

“Did you have to train to be this invasive or were you born with the nosy gene?”

“Oh, c’mon! You totally told me about way more than that before. I mean you gave me all those juicy details about your deflowering.”

“I was not deflowered.” He took a vicious bite of his creamsicle. “I’m not a harlequin heroine.”

“Sorry, cherry popping.” She giggled and he gave her the finger.

“He can be.” He allowed. “I don’t know. I don’t really have much to compare it with. He’s just himself.”

“It’s romantic, you know. Like only one person could fit you. Soulmates or something.”

“Or something.” He agreed, not sure he liked the thought of it. “I don’t like fate.”

“Don’t know if it’s fate exactly-” She started, but that was when the gate swung open and Jane ran through with a loud whoop.

“Who’s your Daddy!” Jane’s usual composure had completely disintegrated as she began the familiar dance of victory. “Take that God of Thunder!”

“I don’t understand.” Thor sat down heavily next to Loki, his club looking a little worse for the wear. “Are you sure she does not have any supernatural powers?”

“You told her?” Loki turned on Darcy who’s eyes widened innocently.

"Well-"

“I told her.” Thor cut in. “It seemed like the thing to do.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Loki jumped to his feet and started to walk away, too angry to just sit there.

“Loki-” Thor started to get up, but Darcy put a hand on his arm and drew him back down.

Storming through the parking lot, he kicked viciously at any rock that came into his path. He had spent a year protecting Jane from her own curiosity, giving up his own identity to the cause. The secrets he’d kept for nothing! He should have known that Thor would blurt it out the second he could. Didn’t he understand why this all had to happen a certain way? He desperately wanted his magic just then, even if only for a moment so he could release some of his rage on an innocent tree or the infernally ugly sign at the gate. He heard footsteps and whirled around to give Thor a piece of his mind, but found Jane instead.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He repeated back.

“C’mon, Darcy’ll take Thor home. Let’s go for a drive, ok?”

“Yeah, ok.” He agreed numbly.

The RV rumbled to reluctant life. He rubbed the dashboard superstitiously as he’d done a hundred times before, encouraging it to take them just a little bit further. She turned left, away from town and civilization. They moved out into the desert. At some unremarkable spot that seemed to please her, she turned everything off and got out. Puzzled, he followed suit and found her clamoring onto the roof. He climbed neatly after and soon they were lying back on cooling metal to look at the stars.

“I was furious at you.” She said quietly. “When I found out. I don’t think I’ve ever been that mad.”

“When did she tell you?”

“The day after you told her. Maybe it didn’t show, but I think it scared her. That you could hide something like that so completely. Even if she forgave you immediately.” She shifted a little, her arm brushing his. “But l didn’t. I wanted to kill you. You had everything I wanted to know, all of it.”

“You knew I did. I mean...I never said it directly, but I thought you understood...”

“I did, sort of. It was one thing to know that you might know something or only a little, but everything? Why are you even bothering with college? You know more than all of your professors combined.”

“No, I don’t really. We don’t express it the way you do here. It’s not something we explore.” He fumbled for a way to explain it. “It’s like gravity, most people know it works, but no one really knows why or care to figure it out. What you do, it’s beautiful. I’m sorry I lied to you, but I’m not sorry that your research is still yours to have.”

“You don’t know that they would've taken it from me.”

“I do. I even have a few good guesses on which group it would be. I don’t pretend to understand everything about this world yet, but I do know people. Power abhors rivals.”

“Is that why you’re happier powerless?”

“What? Why would you-”

“When Thor gave into his inevitable defeat on fake grass, we started to talk. He was so proud of you. Of how happy you were and maybe he thought I wasn’t getting it or whatever which was when he made his little confession.” She paused. “Nice job on landing a god by the way. You don’t aim low do you?”

“No.” He laughed weakly. “Best of everything for me.”

“Right, well, he said you used to have all this magic. That you were probably the most powerful sorcerer that ever lived.”

“Did he?” Not the time for giddiness, but he allowed himself a short moment to enjoy the belated compliment. “I wasn’t. I might have been though, in time.”

“So that was taken from you and now you’re happier. Isn’t that a little weird?”

“No. I don’t think so.” He reached across the roof to grab her hand. “The first time someone I was interested in punched me in the face, you know what happened?”

“You mean it’s happened to you more than once? What is it with you and the violent types?”

“That’s a question for another day.” Another lifetime, he decided privately.

“So what happened?”

“I'll tell you what didn’t happen.” He squeezed her hand. “No one bought me ice cream or listened to me talk about it while we solved math equations.”

“Well, of course not. Gods don’t know the first thing about good ice cream.” She squeezed back. “Tell me all of it then.”

He told her though not with the same detail he’d given to Darcy. He glossed over the intimate parts knowing they wouldn’t titillate or distract her. All her formidable attention was turned on him and tried not to squirm under the scrutiny.

“So that’s the whole mess of it.” He concluded. If he told it a few more times, he could probably get the whole thing told in five minutes with time for questions.

“Wow.” She sat up, resting her chin on one knee. “It doesn’t sound real.”

“I know.”

“You were one fucked up kid.”

“I know.”

“I’m still mad at you.”

“I know.”

“But I get it better now. Why you wanted to protect me and all that. Why you were such an antisocial snot at first.”

“Hey!”

“You were.” She elbowed him. “Anyway, we’ll be ok. You know I’m going to pump Thor for information though.”

“Be careful. Please.”

“Yeah, I will. Especially if I have you looking over my shoulder, double checking the data.”

“You want me to work with you?”

“What do you take me for?” She rolled her eyes. “Equations don’t fix themselves. I figured you were just shy about it. Anyway, now you can be all aboveboard. We can start publishing jointly.”

“I...thank you.” He smiled at her. “You don’t have to pump him for information. I’ll tell you now.”

“Good. I think I might get distracted with him explaining anyway.”

“Jane!”

“I’m allowed to look.” She grinned. “Looking is free.”

And somehow, it was all right again. They talked math all the way back to the apartment, joining Darcy and Thor for a late night movie marathon. Loki insinuated himself into Thor’s lap before he had a chance to say anything.

“Stop confessing things.” He chided him lightly, stealing a handful of Darcy’s popcorn.

“All right.” Thor smiled, a little bemused and that was the end of that.

The rest of the summer flew by. His renewed good mood put heavy tips into his pocket, enough to reconsider his hours once the semester started.

“I could contribute.” Thor offered as Loki counted out crumpled bills, calculating expenses. “I hate sitting around when you’re at work all day.”

“You need identification to work.” He reminded him. “I don’t think the amnesia thing is going to work twice.”

“What about being an illegal alien? They seem to make money.” Thor pointed in the vague direction of the television. “They have many debates about in on the news.”

“If you get caught, it’d be a world of trouble.”

“I don’t care, I just want to do something.” He sighed heavily, looking terribly downtrodden.

“All right, all right.” Loki’s mind was already at work. “Let me do some research.”

There was a surprising amount of information about fake identities on the Internet and Loki was once more impressed with human ingenuity. Within a week, Thor had a legitimate social security card with the name Thomas Green on it. By the time the fall semester was underway, Thomas had found a temporary job with a contractor that didn’t ask too many questions.

“I pick rocks up, I put rocks down.” Thor had huffed in annoyance after the first day. “Useless labor that a drone could do.”

A week later, he was telling Loki eagerly about Ricardo’s new baby and the soccer game he’d been invited to join over the weekend. Loki had listened without the slightest trace of the mirth. He even went to the soccer game and wound up joining in after a lot of jeering. When he surprised himself and scored a goal, Thor whooped and snagged him for a deep kiss.

“They don’t care.” Thor laughed at his expression when they were met with good-natured whistles and laughter. “They’re good people. I checked.”

“Yes, he told us he had a boyfriend and that if that was as problem, we would beat us bloody!” The man Loki thought was Ricardo said. “Now break it up, we got a game to play!”

His professors continued to dote on him, especially after the paper he and Jane wrote was accepted by The Astrophysical Journal. Alma gave him a ten cent raise after he put out the grease fire caused by the chef of the week and managed some terrible short order cooking of his own after said chef had stormed out. It was all going so nauseatingly well that he shouldn’t have been surprised when it all went to hell.

It had started innocently enough. It was early evening at the diner and one of his favorite regulars was sitting at the counter. Jim was in his late thirties, shaved bald and covered in tattoos. He ran the parlor where Loki had first been pierced and he was constantly trying persuade him back to the chair.

“You ever thought about getting inked?” Jim asked idly that night as Loki set a hamburger in front of him.

“Sometimes.” He admitted. “I’ve got an image in mind even, but no idea where I’d put it.”

“Oh yeah, what would you get?”

“Don’t you get sick of talking about this stuff?”

“Nah, I love my job. Tats tell a lot about a person.”

“Not sure I should tell you then.” Loki winked, wetting down a washcloth to get at a particularly sticky patch of spilled soda. “Might be too revealing.”

“Oh, come on. I’m curious now.”

“I think a hammer. Not like an everyday one, but you know one of those medieval weapon kinds.”

“Oh man, yeah! That’d be hot.” Jim reached out and snagged his wrist, turning the arm to expose the pale skin to the light. “Right here.”

“That seems so...obvious. I mean anyone could see it.”

“That’s kind of the point.” Jim traced an outline of the hammer with one finger, tickling the soft skin. "Why don’t you-ow, what the fuck man!”

Loki’s attention snapped upwards. Jim was sprawled on the floor, the entire diner staring in dumb silence. Thor, trembling with rage, loomed over the prone man.

“You don’t touch him.” Thor said firmly, reaching down to pick Jim off the floor for more.

Loki was over the counter and on Thor’s back in an instant.

“Leave him alone, you asshole!” He growled. “He’s a friend.”

“But he-”

“Wasn’t doing anything.” Loki pulled in a tight breath. “I don’t want to make a scene. Just...go. We’ll talk about this later.”

Fists still clenched in anger, Thor walked out, letting the doors slam closed behind him. Loki reached down a hand to help Jim off the floor.

“Damn.” Jim rubbed at his drawer. “Who the fuck was that?”

“That would be my boyfriend. I’m sorry. Meal’s on me.”

“Looks like you should rethink that tattoo.”

“Why?” He moved back behind the counter, pouring himself a glass of water.

“Well, given that guy’s size, probably what the hammer was supposed to be right? Kind of a short fuse on him, huh? Maybe not the the type to make that kind commitment too.”

“You have no idea.” Loki pressed the cool glass to his forehead. He finished his shift and found himself too angry to even think about talking to Thor. Instead he went to the bar and nursed a beer, ignoring his buzzing phone. He never should have bought Thor a cellphone and damn Darcy for teaching him how to text.

Two a.m. finally saw him home and reluctantly shutting the door behind him. Thor stood up from the couch.

“I’m sorry.” He said immediately. “I shouldn’t have...I thought...”

“It’s fine.” Loki swallowed back anger. “I overreacted. Let’s just go to bed.”

Common knowledge said not to go to bed angry, but Loki was sure that he if fought it out with Thor now, he would say things he’d regret. He woke up gritty, overheated and still choking back rage. Point to common knowledge then. Slipping out of bed, he got ready to leave still hot with anger, even as he listened to Darcy’s usually amusing chatter on the way to school.

His phone buzzed again when he sat down for his first class. He pulled it out in annoyance. Thumbing through the progressively more angry messages from last night, he found the newest one.

 _sorry. again._

Loki frowned, tapped quickly at the phone.

 **Whatever.**

 _i love you_

 **You don’t trust me**

 _yes i do!_

 **Then why did you punch Jim?**

 _he was touching you! :(_

 **He’s my friend. If you trusted me, you’ d know it was innocent.**

 _Trust you, not him_

 **We were in a crowded diner, what did you think was going to happen?**

 _didn’t think._

 **Obviously. I hate your temper.**

 _i know. i’m trying, i really am._

 **Jim gave me a number for domestic violence victims after you left. That was awkward**

 _domestic violence?_

 **When you hit the ones you love.**

 _i would never hit you. not after that first time._

 **OMG, I can’t believe you said that. It’s out of a Lifetime movie. I’m a total co-dependent victim. My whole life suddenly makes more sense.**

 _no idea what that means, but really i’d never hit you again. ever._

 **I know. Now that I’m fragile and mortal and all.**

 _not that delicate. still good at taking another kind of pounding._

 **Stop flirting. I’m still mad at you. But I can take less of that now too.**

 _one of the drawbacks_

 **Yes, well. I don’t turn into an ice block or something in the middle, so there’s a perk.**

 _that could be convenient on hot days, lets get a new window unit_

 **Shopping this weekend then. BTW, noting my cooling proprieties is not going to convince me to try to get my powers back. Nice try though.**

 _its going to happen eventually, loki, you know that_

 **No, actually I don’t.**

 _i’m not going to watch you grow old and die_

 **What life will there be for me? No one in Asgard wants me there and people here are bound to notice someone not aging.**

He sent the message with a tight tap, hating that they had to have this conversation again and hadn’t they been arguing about something else entirely?

 _oh, so i’m no one??_

 **I can’t make my life all about you.**

 _i won’t let you die_

 **I’m not sure how I should feel about that.**

 _and why is that?_

 **Shouldn’t my death be my choice?**

 _fine. you don’t have to stay dead._

 **Wow. That’s only mildly creepy and controlling.**

 _so if you get hit by a car and die tomorrow im just supposed to accept that? impossible._

 **It’s what everyone else has to deal with everyday. Why should I be any different?**

 _because you may be human but your soul is not_

 **Do I have a soul? Given my heritage, I doubt it.**

 _don’t say that_

Class let out and Loki was still sitting there, staring at his phone trying to make sense of it all. He walked slowly across the quad and bought a cup of coffee before replying.

 **I’m terrified of going back. Who I might become.**

It was oddly liberating to type that out. Maybe they should have all their arguments via text.

 _and i’m terrified of being without you. i can’t._

Fearless Thor who had gone to hell and back to get him was afraid. Loki sat down hard.

 **Would you be able to stop me if I went off the rails?**

 _you said you’d save me from myself once. if you lost it, id do what needed to be done. by my own hand._

Loki stared at the message and then to his surprise it buzzed again.

 _i just hope it never comes to that. id be killing a part of myself._

 **You have other people that love you. You’d survive it.**

 _looked up co-dependent, it wouldn’t be ok. need you like that._

 **Don’t you think that’s a little unhealthy?**

 _im in love with the man raised as my brother. unhealthy in comparison to that?_

There was really no fitting reply, Loki rubbed a little at the screen with a slight smile.

 **You’re right. Gotta go to my next class.**

 _still mad at me?_

 **No. Just need to think.**

Loki sleepwalked through the rest of the day, a Jack-shaped automaton as he went to classes and then to work. Under it all he was planning his attack. Clearly he had to draw some boundaries up for Thor. He was going to go home and they would have a rational discussion about what was and wasn’t acceptable. Everything would get laid out neatly.

Thor met him at the door of the diner at the end of his shift, holding a huge bouquet of flowers like they might bite.

“Flowers?” A smile spread unbidden over Loki's lips.

“The guys at work said they were the correct way to apologize.” Thor thrust them into his hand. “I’m sorry, really.”

“It’s ok.” Loki took the abused bouquet. They smelled delicious, already withering in the heat. “Let’s go home, I’ll put them in some water. Then we should talk.”

There wasn’t a vase to be found among the knick-knacks of the apartment, so he stuck them in a jam jar and called it good. They looked homey on the little kitchen table.

“Can we go for a walk if we’re going to talk?” Thor held out his hand and Loki took it out of habit. “I need to move.”

They walked down the road and out into the desert beyond. The night chill was already coming on and Loki was grateful that he’d thought to snag a sweatshirt before they left.

“Listen,” He said once he’d gathered enough courage together. “We have to talk about a few things. I mean, I love you and all, but if we don’t- what?”

Thor had stopped dead in his tracks, staring at him as though he’d grown another head.

“You love me?” Thor asked so quiet and delicately that Loki almost didn’t hear him.

“Of course I do.” He wrinkled his nose in annoyance. “Look, that’s not the point, I was saying-”

“You love me.” A huge ridiculous smile grew on Thor’s face.

“What of it?” Loki knit his eyebrows. “Wait...was that ever in question? Seriously?”

“You never said.” Thor stepped closer, still beaming. “I used to be sure you did, but since I’ve gotten here... I wasn’t sure anymore. And I made you so angry yesterday, I thought...”

“Thor. You idiot.” Loki snapped, watching as Thor grinned a little wider. “Of course, I love you. I wouldn’t let anyone else get under my skin like you do. You’re it. There’s no one else I would ever...that’s why you were so possessive wasn’t it? You thought that I’d run off with the next guy that looked at me right?”

“No, not really, but...it’s good to hear anyway.” Now Thor’s arms were around him and Loki couldn’t help but to burrow into him. “I love you, Loki. So much it scares me.”

“I love you too.” Loki laughed, quick and bright. “This was not the conversation we were supposed to have.”

“I like this one better.”

“Me too.” He sighed. “You can’t hit people. Unless they hit you first.”

“Fine. You need to stop flirting then.” Thor said solemnly.

“I’m a waiter, flirting keeps me in the luxury to which I’ve become accustomed.” He smiled as Thor’s brow wrinkled up. “I suppose I can come up with other ways to hustle tips.”

It turned out that Loki could still out run Thor in a footrace if properly motivated. Their laughter rang through the empty night air, trailing back towards home. When they collapsed on the bed, giddy and exhausted, the ash tree whispered over the window to lull them to sleep.

That night ,for the first time since his exile, Loki dreamed of Asgard.

He stood on one of the palace’s high balconies. In the dream, he could see the entire realm stretching out in all directions and hear all of its people crying out in agony. A helm lay heavy on his head and when he reached up to remove it, his hands came away sticky with blood. The stain grew and started to drip onto the floor. The drip became a river of red, pouring from him to the elegant tiled floor. Furious, he pried at the helm again, wresting it from his head. Barbed hooks tore at his flesh and the blood smeared over his eyes until the entire realm flushed vermilion before him.

 _Behold Loki-king._ The words whispered into his ear. _Look on what you wrought and despair._

“I’m no king!” He threw the helm from him. “I want nothing of it.”

 _Hail, Loki-king, destroyer of worlds._ The bitter voice fell heavily on his shoulders, pushing him to his knees. _You cannot run from this. You cannot escape it. As you lay in your frozen cradle, all of this was already decided._

“No!” He struggled to his feet, wiping futilely at the blood in his eyes. “I don’t believe in fate or prophecy.”

 _Submit, Loki-king, sire of Ragnarök._ Rough fur filled his palm, the smell of a fresh kill lingered in his nose. _What lives within you, God of Evil, cannot be denied._

He woke, breathing hard and sweat pouring into his eyes, leaving them stinging. Thor was shaking him, concern written clear all over his face.

“I’m awake.” He said hoarsely, pushing up ontp his elbows.

“You were screaming. I couldn’t get you to wake up.”

“It’s all right. Just a nightmare.”

“What did you dream about that so disturbed you?”

Using the edge of a sheet to wipe his eyes clean, he tried to come up with a suitable lie and failed.

“Asgard.” He settled on.

“Tell me.” Thor pressed. “You slept like one walking into the darkness of prophecy. Perhaps it was a warning of some kind.”

“Not a warning. A promise.” Scrubbing a hand over his face, he told him what he could remember.

“There’s no sense in it.” Thor reached for him, pulling him close to lay kisses on skin and rub a hand over his back. “None at all.”

“You have to go back.” He pressed his face into the crook of Thor’s neck. “You can’t stay here forever. Asgard needs a king and if there was ever any doubt about which one of us that should be, it’s certainly clear now.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“You’ll come back.” Loki kissed him hard as if he could impress the promise onto his lips. “We’ll figure something out.”

They talked around it for weeks afterward, but in the end, Thor walked into the desert alone to call open the Bifrost. He carried with him no provisions and wore the clothes he had arrived in. Long after he returned home and sought the silence of his rooms, he discovered a lock of black hair braided to Mjolnir’s hilt exactly as a pink ribbon had once been fastened.


	2. Hour of Seperation

“Jack? Are you all right?”

“Hm?” Loki blinked and smiled vaguely at his classmates. He turned back to the board to keep writing out the solution he’d discovered. “Yes, I’m fine. What was I saying?”

“You were telling us that we were morons.” One of the boys pointed out. A ripple of laughter spread through the class.

“Oh, yeah, right...thanks, Josh.” He launched back into the explanation without missing a beat.

“I saw something strange today.” He said later as he climbed into the Honda without his usual grace. “Just out of the corner of my eye.”

“What was it?” Darcy thrust the key into the ignition, the engine churning.

“A wolf at the window of my classroom.”

“There aren’t any wolves out here. Coyotes maybe.” She threw the car into reverse almost mowing down the students.

“Maybe I’m losing my mind.”

“It’s a possibility.” The radio sang quietly. “Or you need to sleep.”

“I can’t.” He rubbed at his eyes. Each night he lay down with the intention to sleep, but he’d grown used to wrapping himself up in Thor, slowing his breath until they inhaled and exhaled in symphony.

“Try some sleeping pills or something.” She tapped his forehead. “Or your brain going to melt. Genius brains all over the floor. Think of the stains! I think I might have an Ambien or two lying around.”

The drug went down well enough and it did lull him to sleep. A dark, blissfully dreamless sleep that should have left him refreshed. Instead, he woke up cramped and exhausted to find his entire room strewn with paper. The draftsmanship was his own, but the images horrified him. A dark eyed wolf feasted on the dead of a battlefield, a terrifyingly beautiful woman with dark hair draped like a curtain over her face with arms thrown open in greeting to an endless line of souls and a great snake wrapped around the world with its tail held firmly in its teeth were repeated endlessly. He lifted his hands up to find them shaking and black with charcoal.

Slowly, he gathered the sheets, trying not to look to closely at them. There were dozens. He must have started to draw as soon as he fell asleep and not stopped until dawn. The woman, the snake and the wolf trembled in his hands.

“I didn’t know you could draw.” Darcy leaned in the doorway, glasses slipping down her nose.

“No more sleeping pills.” He told her firmly, throwing the drawings into a desk drawer and slamming in shut.

“You missed one.” She stooped, scooping it up off the floor. “Oh, hey, it’s mew-mew.”

“Mjolnir.” He corrected absently, taking the sheet from her. Thor’s hammer did stand in defiant relief against the paper. The lines wavered, evidence that this might have been his last drawing before returning to his bed. The hammer rested at the base of a great tree, it’s owner nowhere in evidence. Leaves fell around it, piling on the ground in drifts. His stomach knotted.

“You ok?” She glanced over the drawing. “I mean, it’s just a drawing.”

“What would you do if you knew that you were going to cause the end of the world?” He asked her.

“Uh, I dunno. Kill myself?” She frowned. “Depended on how I knew, what I was going to do, I guess.”

“That would be the honorable thing.” He folded the drawing in half, then in half again until the somber image disappeared from his mind’s eye.

“You’re not going to kill yourself.” She wrinkled her nose. “And how can you cause the end of the world?”

“I don’t know.” A snake, a wolf and a woman. Mjolnir alone. He couldn't think of anything positive that came from such signs. “I don’t understand any of it.”

“I think you just had a funky reaction to medication. It happens.” She took the paper from his hands and set it on the desk. “C’mon, let me make you some breakfast, ok? You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten.”

The food sat like lead in his stomach, but he finished everything she made until the concern lifted from her face. When she left for work, he returned to his room and found a fresh stick of charcoal and his last blank sheet of paper.

The walk to the tattoo parlor soothed him. It was hard to think of his nocturnal ramblings under the fierce light of the sun. By the time he reached the door, he had nearly talked himself out of it all together.

“Jack!” The door flew open and Jim beamed at him. “I knew we’d see you in here eventually.”

“Hi.” He found a smile from somewhere. “I’m not sure I-”

“You’re still getting the hammer, huh?” Jim took the drawing from him. “Oh nice, runes. Do they mean something?”

“Oh, you know. Sort of.” Frigid air conditioning washed over him, standing all his hair on end. “Maybe it’s foolish.”

“Hey man, whatever works, I don’t judge. Go take a seat and I’ll get this onto transfer paper.”

Sitting on a slippery leather chair, he found himself reaching for his magic for the first time in a year. He knew he couldn’t use it, had diligently trained himself to pretend it never existed. Now though he picked at it like a child rubbing the fur of a beloved stuffed animal. The cool dark swell of power remained locked away and he retreated, carrying with him an idea.

“It’s more complicated.” He yelled over to Jim. “I want a tree too. A large one.”

“What kind of tree?”

“Let me sketch it for you.”

The piece would range over his entire back, over his shoulders and arms. In each hidden nook, between the branches, he wrote in all the runes for protection, love, fidelity and power that he could remember.

“This’ll cost you.” Jim whistled low as the ink flowed from Loki’s pen. “I mean even with a friendly discount. And it’s going to take months.”

“That’s fine.” He drew on, adding in the deep wells that nurtured the giant roots. “Can you start today?”

The outline alone took six hours of relentless buzzing pain that filled his head deliciously. When Jim set down his needle, the first crisp reality of the tree stood in angry red relief from the small of his back to the long branches on the backs of his arms.

“When can I come back?” He demanded, even as Jim taped protective plastic to his skin.

“An addict born, huh?” Jim laughed in the mirror. “Give it a few weeks, we’ll work in sections from here on out.”

So in between classes and after work, he would sneak into the parlor like a thief, watching with satisfaction as the ink spread over his skin in rippling black and white detail. When it was finally finished, he premiered it to Jane and Darcy in the lab, t-shirt dangling from his fingers while they stood in shocked silence.

“It’s gorgeous.” Jane said first, reaching out to touch the knot of birds at the nape of his neck. The soft brush of her fingers sent a shiver through him. “It’s what we’re discovering, isn’t it? All of it.”

“Yes.” He hadn’t thought of it that way, but it was a tribute to their work as well. “Sort of.”

“It’s a love letter.” Darcy said quietly.

“To the work?” Jane’s eyebrows knit.

“Nuh uh. Look.” With one pointed nail, Darcy traced the hammer settled at the base of the tree on the small of his back. “The tree grows out of it, you see? Like the world depends on it.”

“I think you’re reading too much into it.” He said around the lump in his throat. “It’s just a set of runes and a tree. Anyway, the tree is mean to grow from the wells.”

“Whatever, closet romantic. I see through you.” She pushed him away. “Put on your shirt and help me change the telescope lens. I can’t hold it still and pop out the glass at the same time.”

Shrugging on his shirt, he watched her run up to the roof and was about to follow when Jane’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“Are you ok?”

“No.” He smiled at her. “But who knows, maybe I will be soon.”

As if to make a liar out of him, the dream returned the night. Everything was the same: the barbed helmet, the terrible voice and the torrents of blood on his hand. When he woke, his back was on fire. The doctor diagnosed infection and he swallowed down penicillin for weeks to no avail. He woke each morning to find more and more of the tattoo aflame, thin red lines pulsing as if his skin was rejecting the ink.

Finals swept him up and he had an excuse for not sleeping. Studying wore him down until he passed out at his desk, an alarm waking him before he could sink into dreams and lose precious minutes that could be spent cramming numbers into his head. It was all wonderfully mundane and he mourned the end of the semester like the passing of a dear friend.

“Get up.” Darcy threw something heavy on his bed. “We’re going north to get away from the heat.”

“Work.” He muttered, pretending to wake as if he hadn’t stared sightless at the ceiling all night.

“Vacation.” She tsked. “I called out for you already. Jane’s got the RV double parked outside.”

The heaviness turned out to be his duffel bag, already packed. He picked it up and stumbled down the RV, not bothering to change out of his pajama pants. Stuffing the bag under one bed, he climbed onto it hoping the familiar rumbling of the engine lulling him to sleep. He slept through most of Colorado, dream-haunted, and woke gritty and annoyed.

“Where are we going?” He asked through a yawn, leaning over the passenger seat.

“Minot, North Dakota.” Darcy told him through a mouthful of Lucky Charms.

“Why the hell would we go there?” He leaned over to grab a handful of cereal out of the box.

“It’s a surprise.” Jane told him solemnly, prying his hand open and stealing all the green marshmallows.

The long drive was punctuated by kitchy roadside stops and complicated games where they speak entirely in lyrics that Jane lost immediately and officiated arbitrarily afterwards. It should have been like the comfortable outing they took the year before, but each mile brought him closer to something he couldn’t explain. His tension was contagious and by the time they roll into Minot, none of them have spoken for hours.

The sign catches his attention and he barks out a harsh laugh.

“Norsk Høstfest?”

“The largest Scandinavian festival in America!” Darcy winked. “We figured maybe you were homesick with all the pouting and weirdness. This was pretty much as close as we could get.”

Fear roiled in his belly, but he pushed it aside to hug them both. It looked pleasant enough with families parking higgly-piggly all over the RV lot, spilling out with smiles and barbecue grills. They’d have a bit of fun and he could tell them about the nicer parts of Asgard, the foods he had grown up on and the customs they’d find odd. It’d be fine.

Yet, when they were asleep and all, but the most diligent partiers had gone into their wheeled homes for the night, he lay awake. His back burned terribly and he could smell something rancid. Hunting around the RV, he found no origin to the smell.

Then the voices started. Quiet and plucking at his ear, a swift chant of his name in a thousand tongues. Pressing his hands to his ears, he found the sound tickling inside his head until he was driven outside. He picked quietly around the bonfires and walked out into the dark forest that hadn’t been there when they arrived that morning.

The trees rustled as he walked among them, leaves whispering among themselves. Unbidden, the memory of a cool summer day spent among ruins with mischief on his mind made itself known. The trees were old, ancient and far from their roots. Either he _had_ fallen asleep or there was ancient magic here left like a thumbprint by some ancestor or another.

“Who comes here?” A woman’s voice, sweet and cold as ice cream trembled the branches.

“Why does he come?” A soft hiss threaded up from the ground.

“What does he carry with him?” A growl that rained from above.

“I’m Loki, I came because I was called and I carry nothing.” He stood up straighter, searching the darkness. “Where are you? Show yourselves!”

“How can we show what does not yet exist?” The woman asked.

“I can go back the way I came.” He turned.

“Stop!” The hiss tickled the soles of his feet. Why hadn’t he put on shoes? “We will do as you ask.”

An errant wind parted the branches to let the moonshine between them. From the darkness, the woman stepped forward, fat coils of the snake masking her body, it’s great head settled on her shoulder. Pacing beside her, a shaggy wolf with coal black eyes. Each could have sprung breathing from his Ambien fueled drawings.

“Why did you call me?” He asked, all the months fear coalescing in his veins into ice. “Why have you haunted my sleep?”

“We don’t.” They spoke as one, a hiss, cold cream and growl. “You call to us. You have reached a crossroad.”

“I already made my decision. I will not be king, I don’t even want my power back.”

“That is not your decision to make.” The wolf sniffed. “The return of your sorcery is inevitable.”

“Then I won’t use it.” He sighed. “Look, I don’t know what you want from me, but I know what I’m doing here. No amount of eerie prophetic totems are going to change that.”

“Totems, no.” The woman sounded nearly amused. “We are not metaphors or prophecy.”

“Nor fever dreams.” The snake turned bright eyes to him. “We are your children.”

“I don’t have any children and I’m not likely to at the rate I’m going.” He snorted. “Try again.”

“We heard you.” The wolf sat down on its haunches, tongue lolling out the side of its mouth like an overgrown dog. “A rattling coughing cry that screams like the hunting hawk cutting through time. The crossroad at which you sit leads to our birth or our non-existence.”

“We brought you to this wood, a time out of time.” The snake’s coils tightened and relaxed as it spoke, the woman seemed not to notice or care. “To bring you to the right decision.”

“The right decision being the one that creates the three of you.”

“There are others.” The woman shrugged. “There is no right decision, only the one that you will make.”

“What decision is it then?” He demanded. “What’s this choice I have to make?”

“Do you take your life now, here and tonight or do you live?” The wolf licked its chops. “The essential choice.”

“Why would I kill myself?” Loki frowned. “I don’t believe in fate anymore. We parted ways long ago.”

“If you live, all that should happen will. We three will come to draw breath as we should and because of you all things will end.” The woman said gently.

“I’m not going to kill myself because you think I’ll bring on Armgeddon.” He shook his head. “It’s ridiculous.”

“My name is Fenrir. I am the oldest child of Loki and the giantess Angrboda.” The wolf snarled. “Born terrible, the gods will trick me into chains. When the end comes, I will break free. I am Odin’s Death, fierce and final.”

“My name is Hel. I am the youngest child of Loki and the giantess Angrboda.” She stepped forward, the snake falling away from her. Her face was a mirror to his, the long black hair as glossy and full as his own, but her body was a moldering corpse. “I shepard all the dead, presiding over Helheim. When the end comes, I will take all that remains under my cloak. I am Ygdrassil’s Death, world ending and bleak.”

“My name is Jormungand. I am the middle child of Loki and the giantess Angrboda.” The snake reared up until it could look Loki in the eye. “Born violent and ever-growing, they will cast me into the earth’s oceans and I will wrap around this world to hold it together until the breaking of time. I am Thor’s Death, poison and betrayal.”

Loki listened, heart pounding and as they spoke he could almost see the end. It was so far away, many thousands of thousands of years away yet as immediate and clear as if it happened yesterday. He could see Fenrir devouring the sun, Hel’s cloak swallowing all realms and worse still, Thor’s slow and agonized death from the poison of Jormungand’s fierce dripping fangs.

“Why should I kill myself now for what I have so long to change?” He scoffed with a confidence he did not feel. “I’m held by no bonds to this fate, took no oaths. I am made different by my choices. I walk a new path.”

“You will be the instrument to the death of all the things you love.” Hel warned, stepping back into the darkness.

“Why do you advise against your own creation?” He frowned. “Don’t you want to be born?”

Fenrir padded forward even as Hel and Jormungand disappeared into the trees. Soundless and scentless, the wolf moved in long slinking steps to pierce Loki with his dark gaze.

“Father.” And he growled no longer, but spoke with a man’s voice, not so different from Loki’s own. “When I was a child, I sat at your feet and listened to your stories. They were bitter with old tears and that I drank from. I do not see the man you become from what stands before me. You are in the blossom of love, but when you come to our mother it is with a broken and scarred heart.”

“Why?” He asked weakly, staring into the unblinking gaze.

“I do not know and it is not for so many years that you cannot imagine it now.” Fenrir’s tongue flickered out, painting a cold wet stripe over his cheek. “We do not wish to be born to a broken man. Our father was once great, but bore his children in the sourness of old age when he was weak and petty. Fate is written, but perhaps you, cleverest of the Aesir and brightest of the Jotunheim’s sons, can unwrite it.”

“I will.” Loki vowed, the blaze of heat on his back a searing binding to that vow. Fenrir’s nose twitched.

“You answered all questions, but one truthfully. Why did you lie when I asked?”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You said you carry nothing.” The great muzzle lay on his shoulder, the powerful nose sniffing at his neck.

“I don’t.”

“Liar.” And Fenrir yipped in laughter. “Father, you carry all the worlds with you, carved into your skin and that is a heavy burden to overlook.”

“Then I was lying to myself as well.” He reached up to brush the shoulder that bore the Thorn rune tucked among the leaves of Aesir’s branch. “Imagine that.”

“Strange. My father never bore such a weight.”

“Perhaps he wasn’t strong enough for it.” Loki found his misplaced confidence and smiled. “But I am.”

“Goodbye, Father. May we never meet again.” Fenrir licked him once more affectionately, before loping off into the woods.

“Goodbye, children.” He watched the darkness until he was sure they were gone, before turning back to the camp and the bright spots of flame in the darkness.

For the first time in months, he slept in peace, dreaming only the usual nonsense of a tired mortal mind. In the morning, he woke and found his feet dirty and his tattoo healed.  
The fair was lost on him after that, though he did a reasonable job of pretending at fun for the girls. All the while he thought about relationships and divorce rates and loving someone for the span of an immortal life. When night fell, he tried to find the woods again, but they were gone. Only fields surrounded them and not a hint of the supernatural anywhere.

“Hey, where are you going?” Darcy yelled when he got behind the wheel of the RV a few days later. “That’s the wrong way.”

“It’s only the wrong way if we’re going home.” He grinned at her. “Let’s go off the beaten path and see what we find.”

“I knew that festival was just what you needed.” She kissed his cheek. “You look much more like yourself. So where are we going?”

“Who cares?” He merged onto the interstate and hit the gas. “Let’s get lost.”


	3. Arguing with Norns- An Epilogue

The buzz of his phone took him off guard. It was late and the diner was nearly empty. He was alone, but for a desultory short order cook who was currently smoking over the pasta sauce. Loki made a mental note to get him fired before they got shut down for a health code violation. Topping off the coffee of their remaining patrons, he headed behind the counter to surreptitiously check the message.

 **can i come in? doors are locked**

Startled, Loki looked up. Thor leaned waved and grinned at him through the glass of the front doors. Heart racing, Loki leaped over the counter and ran to the door, turning the locks with shaking fingers. Throwing himself forward, Thor caught him easily and they kissed under the florescent lights.

“Hi.” Loki pulled away slowly, taking a better look at him. He was dressed in Midgard clothes, all soft and welcoming, begging for touch. “You went home to change before you came to me?”

“I thought one collapse in full armor was enough for the diner.” Thor grinned, not letting go of Loki’s waist. “How much longer is your shift?”

“Not long.” He leaned up to kiss him again. “Sit at the counter, are you hungry?”

“Starving.” Thor said softly, eyes locked on Loki’s throat.

“I’ll get you pancakes. Sit.” He grinned madly at him. “How long are you here?”

“A month, maybe more.” Sliding onto one diner stool, Thor looked utterly at home, rugged and handsome. “I promised father that I would be back before the coronation.”

Thick bile rose to the back of Loki’s throat, biting sharply at his tongue. It took him off guard and he steadied himself on the counter. Apparently he still had the capacity for jealousy. With great care, he swallowed it down and found the greater part of him that rejoiced.

“So you’re to be king at last then.”

“Yes and, then I’ll be free to come and go as I choose. Which will be as often as possible.” Thor reached over, laying his hand over Loki’s. “I’ll pave the way for your return. Whenever you so choose it, Asgard will be waiting for you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Loki laughed tiredly. “I have much to tell you.”

After their trip, he had obsessively researched long term relationships. It was stupid really and most of the advice contradicted itself. The only consistency he had found was honesty. Everyone went on about how important it was to maintain the mystery, keep discovering each other, but underneath it all every author of every book vouched for honesty. Reluctantly, Loki found himself agreeing with them.

“About what?”

“Later.” He drew his hand away and poured Thor a cup of coffee.

“Loki...”

“Trust me.” Smiling, he leaned over the counter to kiss him again.

“I do.” And hearing that was better than a thousand declarations of love.

The diner closed later than usual, ratcheting up their anticipation until they were tearing at each other, bedroom door barely closed behind them. They made love in the moonlight, devouring and without mercy. The room was a shambles by the time they’d finished, clothing strewn everywhere and the sheets torn from the mattress to pillow their resting place on the floor. Poured over Thor like butter on hot toast, Loki regained his breath in slow aching pants. With hypnotic slowness, Thor’s hands toured the tattoo. His finger tips traced the hidden runes and mighty branches.

“What is this?” He asked confused, but also little in awe. There was worship in his touch. “Loki, what have you done?”

“I wasn’t sure at first.” It had been weeks since the tattoo had ached, but Thor’s hands were smoothing away even the memory of pain. Loki arched into the delicate touch. “I was going to get a few protective ruins. That dream I had before you left stuck and frightened me.”

“You never seem afraid to me.” Thor laughed. “Brave in the face of interminable odds.”

“Oh, but I’m afraid all the time.” Loki shook his head.”Of myself.”

“Why?”

“I thought when I came here that I had changed.” He sighed. “But it’s not real change when it goes untested, is it? It’s easy to be different here with no expectations and no power. Jane told me that I was happier powerless and she’s right, I am. Because than I don’t have to fear what I’ll do, who I might become.”

“We’ve talked about this.” Thor sighed. “You’re a good man and I promised-”

“I know what you promised. And I believe you. I believed myself when I said that I wouldn’t do those things, but then the children...” He buried his face in Thor’s neck. “It’s strange to even think about it, I’m not sure how to explain.”

“What children?”

Hesitantly, though it still felt private, raw and maybe a little sacred, Loki told him about his vision in the woods. The story had rolled through his head a hundred times, but it sounded different out loud, less like a holy vision and more like a mad feverish dream. When he finished, he looked to Thor who was staring at him.

“I know it’s all kinds of crazy.” He admitted reluctantly. “I don’t believe half of it myself and I lived through it.”

“Were they beautiful?” Thor asked, voice hoarse.

He thought of Hel’s half-rotting body, Fenrir’s rough coat and Jormungand’s dripping fangs....the perfect dark clarity of their eyes, the pungent smell of their skin and the touch of Fenrir's tongue on his cheek.

“They were.” He sighed. “They were terrible and beautiful and utterly mine.”

“Two sons and a daughter.” Abruptly, Thor sat up, scrubbing a hand over his face. “What does it mean?”

“I thought that was fairly clear.” Leaning against the bed, Loki studied him. “That I should watch my step or wind up a bitter old god intent on destruction.”

“No...not. I saw...in golden light, not a forest. They were so strong and bright that it hurt to look at them.” The hoarseness gave way to a dry sob. “Þrúðr, Magni and Móði. Two sons and a daughter.”

“Your children.” Loki swallowed hard. “What did they say to you?”

“They...many things.” He reached out to grab Loki’s hand. “There is nothing in any realm that I would trade for you. I was tested though. Sorely tested.”

“You gave them up for me.” It wasn’t a question. “Your future.”

“There will be other futures.” Thor attempted a smile and failed. “I would rather have you.”

“I wish that you didn’t have to choose.” That I didn’t have to choose, he thought.

“I will need an heir some day. There will yet be time to have a child.” Not though the children that Thor had seen, whoever they were. Not the perfect golden future that they had promised him. “Something we both feel comfortable with.”

“Sif will do it. She would gladly marry you and bear you a child, if you left her free to pursue her own life afterward.” Loki rallied, smiling more gamely now. “That will give me a child to corrupt.”

“What of you and your line?”

“I think that it’s best that it dies with me.” The smile faded as rapidly as it arrived. “The fruit of my loins is apparently quite poisoned.”

“I won’t accept that.”

“You didn’t see them. They were monsters.”

“You said they were beautiful.”

“They were.” He sighed and rested his head on Thor’s shoulder. “They should never be born.”

“I wish...” But the sentence trailed off into silence.

“I know.” Loki kissed him with painstaking tenderness.

Homecoming marred by melancholy, they quietly made the bed back up and fell asleep wrapped tightly around each other. With Thor’s skin against his, Loki slid into a dream softly, the transition barely noticed by his conscious mind. In sleep he twitched and before him stretched all of Asgard.

“No!” He cried out, the sound echoing over the empty kingdom. “No, I have done everything... why show this to me again?”

He reached for the bloody helm eager to play out the steps of this and be rid of the terrible dream, but found only his hair in a long spill over his shoulders. It flashed brightly in his hand and when he twitched a lock forward, he found it mottled in gray and white. Even his hand had changed, withered and frail.

“There’s no need to yell.” A slender youth with Fenrir’s appeared at his elbow. “I’m here.”

“Who are you?” Loki pleaded. “Why do you torment me?”

“You’ve forgotten again.” A cool pale hand went to Loki’s forehead. “It’s only me.”

“I don’t know you.” But he did, in the twist of his gut. The youth’s hair was brushed with burnished gold, but his eyes were dark and sparkling. He had a long delicate nose and full lips, a beautiful blending of two familiar faces.

“You might come to know me.” The youth smiled, joyful yet jagged.

“And us.” A giggling young girl, her hair swept up in ink black pigtails pulled an toddling boy behind her.

“I know you.” Loki swallowed hard, taking a step back. “Fool me no longer, pale maidens. To bring my children before me once was fair and needed. To do so again and in this guise...this is cruelty. They are no blood of mine, only tempting shadows.”

The three children flickered uneasily.

“Father...” The oldest cried.

“No! I am the God of Tricks, I recognize them when I see them. Fenrir, Hel and Jormungand, they were real as I, but this is illusion. Such a thing cannot be.”

The children vanished entirely, leaving behind only the sound of a slow mocking clap of three pairs of hands. They emerged from the ground, quick growing saplings in their sweeping white gowns, hair braided with flowers and eyes bright as the sun.

“Loki Laufreyson.” Said one.

“Loki Aesir.” Another.

“Jack Icarus.” Said the last, the slightest curl of a smile on her lips.

“Ladies.” He swept into a bow. “You should know better, fair Norns, than to trick with me.”

“A test.” They said as one. “A pulling of the strings of fate. You have knotted our weaving and sent it to tangles. We seek to right it.”

“That's your problem, not mine.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’d like to wake up now please.”

“Do you not wish to know what comes next?” They chimed. “To know how we will resolve this knot?”

“No.” He smiled, private and deep as a well. “I carry the world tree on my back, all paths are mine to take. I will walk them without assistance.”

“Arrogant.” Said one.

“Foolish.” Another.

“Just as you should be.” Said the last and now she laughed, bright as bells. “Carry the world with care, little one. We will be watching.”

The dream faded and he fell again into an easy sleep, the vision already lost. Outside, the ash stretched under the moonlight. The delicate breeze plucked blossoms from its branches and sent them fluttering through the window, a peaceful warm snow to herald the coming winter.

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! Here ends the Loki trilogy of the Dinerverse, what follows are ficlets and standalones in the same 'verse. Don't like commenting on AO3? Hop over to LJ and leave a note: [Feed the Authors](http://dragons-muse.livejournal.com/65613.html?mode=reply#add_comment")


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